


Forgotten One

by ErzaWritesThings



Series: Forgottenverse [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Child Neglect, Neglect, Suicide, Wrong BWL AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 13:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11419350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErzaWritesThings/pseuds/ErzaWritesThings
Summary: You are famous. You are loved. And you hate it. Because you are the Chosen One. You are the one they want to shove at Voldemort to keep themselves safe. You are the one they want to hide behind, not caring they are sacrificing you to save their own lives. You are the shining hero they’re counting on to save them. Except, you're not a hero, and you don't want to be one either.The classic 'Lily and James are alive and think the wrong twin is the BWL', one-shot style.





	Forgotten One

**Author's Note:**

> First published work, people. Doubt many people'll read at all, but it's as good a place to start as any, right?
> 
> Unbeta'ed, so all mistakes in here are mine to bear. English is not my native language, so go easy on me, yeah?
> 
> If you're triggered by mentions of severe neglect and suicide, don't read, because this isn't for you.

You sit on your bed in your room, staring at the pattern of your bedsheets blankly, twirling your wand between your fingers. It’s been a week. A week since you, and the rest of Britain, found out that your brother is not the Chosen One. You are.

  
It’s been a week, and you already hate it.

  
Your mother and father are elated, of course, and Britain suddenly adores you. The newspaper is filled with your name and pictures from the front page to the last article in between the comics on the last page. Politicians have come to shake your hand and take pictures in front of the press and weasel their way into your good graces. Marriage proposals and business offers have been flooding in by the hour, hundreds upon hundreds of letters a day. People greet you in Diagon Alley, some running up for autographs or handshakes, and shops give you sudden discounts or refuse payment at all.

  
You are famous. You are loved. And you hate it. Because you are the Chosen One. You are the one they want to shove at Voldemort to keep themselves safe. You are the one they want to hide behind, not caring they are sacrificing you to save their own lives. You are the shining hero they’re counting on to save them.

  
Dumbledore has come to see you often, over the past week. Offers of aid, of knowledge, of training, of alliances, all to make you fight for them, when just a week ago, the old man barely even looked at you. You have to stand up and be a hero, Dumbledore tells you, be the shining beacon of hope and light Britain needs you to be. He tells you you’re public property now, that you have a duty to your country, to your people, and that you cannot hide away in your room like you have done for the past week. When you tell him you don’t want to fight, he says that you cannot abandon Britain, that you have to put the past behind you and stand tall and proud. It’s about patriotism, he tells you, about the Light, about hope and forgiveness, and about love. It’s about accepting your destiny and doing your duty.

  
Dumbledore is wrong.

  
A few days ago, your father spoke to you and told you to set aside the past, forgive them for their mistakes, and do what’s expected from you. He says it’s about beating the Dark, and about standing with your family and fighting for what is right. That you’re being selfish and that it is an honour to be the Chosen One.

  
Your father is wrong too.

  
You are not fighting. You are not a hero. You don’t want to be a hero, and you will not be one. And it’s not about being afraid to fight. It’s not about hating them for what they did to you. It’s not about abandoning them for revenge.

  
It’s about being two years old and watching your father play with your brother while you sit in a corner, brushed aside whenever you try to join in and otherwise ignored.

  
It’s about being three and already having learned to dress yourself in the morning, because your mother is too busy dressing your brother.

  
It’s about being four and teaching yourself how to read and write because your mother and father are busy teaching your brother and scold you whenever you try to sit in on the lessons because you want to learn too.

  
It’s about being five and listening to your brother being tucked in and read a bedtime story, while you have to put yourself to bed and listen in through the wall because your father won’t read you a story as well.

  
It’s about being six and spending Halloween in your room, alone and hungry, because your parents sent you up without dinner and told you to stay out of the way of your brother’s yearly Victory Party.

  
It’s about being seven and waking up to an empty house, and crying your little heart out at the kitchen table because it’s your birthday and no one is home.

  
It’s about being eight, and coming down for dinner only to find there are only three places set at the table.

  
It’s about being nine, and finding out your parents and brother have gone on a holiday without you, and having to look after yourself for almost a month because even the house elves have forgotten you are there.

  
It’s about being ten and asking your father to go flying with you, not because you like flying, but because you want to spend time with him, and being brushed aside like you are nothing, and your mother doing the same when you ask to watch a movie with her.

  
It’s about being eleven and going to Diagon Alley for the first time alone, because your parents are too busy shopping with your brother.

  
It’s about getting Sorted at Hogwarts, weeks later, to the sound of confused whispers of people who didn’t even know there was a second Potter child.

  
It’s about looking into the Mirror of Erised, halfway through your first year, and finding that your deepest desire is to be hugged by your parents, and realizing that that is a dream that will likely never come true, and feeling a burning, bitter jealousy and hatred for your reflection for having what you want so badly and can never have.

  
It’s about getting back an essay from your Transfiguration professor, and seeing that she’s misspelt your name, for the fifth time in a row, just like your other professors.

  
It’s about being petrified during second year, and waking up months later with only Madam Pomfrey for company and not even a single card on your side table while everyone else is surrounded by family and well-wishers and mountains of cards and flowers.

  
It’s about waking up in the middle of the night, shaking and crying from nightmares about poisonous yellow eyes, and spending the night terrified and clutching your wand until dawn breaks, because there’s no one to chase the demons in your mind away and hold you until you feel safe enough to sleep.

  
It’s about nearly being Kissed by a Dementor during third year because Peter Pettigrew escaped from Azkaban and barely even being looked at as Remus Lupin - the new defense professor and your very own godfather, no less - absentmindedly presses a chocolate frog into your hand before rushing over to fuss over your brother, who hasn’t even been near the Dementors.

  
It’s about people coming up to you in fourth year, when you reach dating age, to use you to get closer to your brother, only to leave you again once they realize your brother barely even remembers you’re related to him and leaving you hurt and a little bit more broken every time, and only finding out Voldemort has returned through the grapevine because your parents couldn’t be bothered to inform you.

  
It’s about coming home with all Outstandings on your OWLs after fifth year, and neither your mother nor your father even looking at it, nevermind patting your back for a job well done, instead fawning over your brother who has two Trolls, one Exceeds Expectations, and otherwise only Acceptables, as if he is the next Merlin.

  
It’s about being sixteen and spending Christmas watching your brother tear into a veritable mountain of presents while all you get for a present is the confirmation that your parents have finally forgotten your name.

  
It’s about being seventeen and losing the only friend you ever had in a Death Eater raid, and crying alone in your room because her parents forgot to invite you for the funeral, and going to visit her alone to place flowers on her grave, after spending months searching every graveyard in Britain, because no one told you of the location.

  
It’s about suddenly being told that you have to fight for people who had never fought for you, to suffer for people who couldn’t even remember your name until a week ago, to die for people who want a hero, and who will never see you for who you truly are, and who will never want the real you, all because it wasn’t your brother who survived, but you.

  
It’s about not abandoning anything, because you have nothing to abandon.

  
It’s about not hating your brother, because you don’t have a brother.

  
It’s about forgiving your parents, but you have no parents.

  
It’s about fighting for your country, but you have no country.

  
It’s about not having revenge, because revenge means you have something to take it out on, and you don’t have anything.

  
It’s about not abandoning your people, but you can’t abandon something you had never been a part of in the first place.

  
It’s about being something you’re not, and about becoming something you will never be.

  
It’s about lying awake in bed at night, wishing that Voldemort had succeeded that fateful Halloween night, years ago.

  
You sit on your bed in your room, staring at the pattern of your bedsheets blankly, twirling your wand between your fingers. It’s been a week.

  
To you, a week is a week too long.

  
You’re not a hero. You’ll never be a hero.

  
You sit on your bed in your room, staring at the pattern of your bedsheets blankly, and your wand is no longer twirling between your fingers. It’s aimed at your chest instead, and you feel too numb to cry at what you’re going to do.

  
They say that, to cast an Unforgivable, you have to mean it.

  
The Killing Curse is, by far, the easiest spell you have ever cast.

  
You fall limp on your bed, the green of the spell fading in your eyes, your wand falling from lifeless fingers and rolling over the wood of your floor.

  
It’s not about being the Chosen One.

  
It’s about being the Forgotten One.


End file.
